How to Get Traffic From Reddit , The Right Way !! In-Depth Guide

Took me a While to Write all this so try to read it to the end.

If you run an online business you’ve probably learned that it’s a HUGE battle to get traffic, especially if your website is new.

You’ve got no search engine rankings, no connections and no idea how to get thousands of people to your site.

You have to fight to for every single visitor that you get.

I feel your pain. I’ve been there. But I learned how to overcome that problem by using reddit to drive high quality traffic to my sites for the last 9 months. It’s been a total game changer!

In fact, one simple reddit post got 625 sign ups to my brand new product in just 9 days. Yes you read that right! Not 625 visitors, 625 sign ups.

Not too shabby!

I’ll be honest with you. Right now, you will not be able to replicate these results. Why?

The truth is…

Redditors Hate You

If you were to start promoting your site on reddit right now, you’d be likely to join the thousands of “Reddit Marketers” that get laughed off of the site. You see, the trick to reddit marketing is, well, to not market.

Redditors aren’t big fans of self promotion. In fact, there is a special fiery hatred within every redditors’ heart toward shameless self-promoters.

They can smell marketers from a mile away, and they’re not afraid to let you know that they hate you. If they don’t like your post, they will downvote it, bad mouth you, humiliate you and try to get you banned.

So what can you do? Most marketers that I know have either actually got banned, or have just given up.

I don’t blame them either…

It’s true that reddit marketing is a tough cookie to crack, but I’m here to tell you, you can crack it. I’m going to show you how I use it to regularly promote my sites.

My First Shot Case Study

Way back in the day, Spring of 2014 that is, I decided to figure this reddit thing out.

I already liked the site, and I still visit it on a regular basis for an endless supply of GIF images to laugh at:

It was here that I witnessed some “Reddit Marketers” being treated in some of the worst ways imaginable. I knew I couldn’t do what they were doing, if I wanted my share of the 71 billion pageviews reddit gets each year.

At the time I ran a site that allowed me great flexibility in what content I could create. I found myself constantly using reddit to find ideas of things to write about.

Then it hit me…

A Reddit-Revelation In Plain Sight

I thought: I could come up with so much content that would fit in well in these subreddits.

This was an invaluable lesson…

In order to be successful with reddit marketing, you can’t be a marketer. You have to be a redditor

You have to share their passions! But more importantly, you have to share their hatred for self-promotion. Only share something with the community if you think it’s awesome.

That’s exactly what everyone else on the reddit does! It doesn’t matter where the content comes from, even if it’s from your own site.

After I realized this, I started to use reddit normally. I interacted on the site, posted cool links that I found and upvoted other posts. Just as the average redditor would do.

One day, I decided to post an article of my own. Here are the results:

(I have no idea why I was using Statcounter instead of Google Analytics back then)

reddit was the only public place that I had ever promoted this site. I only posted 2 links and they managed to get a large initial influx of visitors as well as “stick” and generate some consistent traffic over time.

But as Confucius once said “It’s not the reddit post, but the redditor behind that post that defines you.” 

I knew I was onto something.

I moved on from that project, but I kept this in my tool belt. Over the past 9 months I have spent a lot of time refining and testing this process into a system that I’m going to share with you below.

There are 10 steps you need to follow to be successful on reddit. Skipping even one of these can ruin your reputation on the site, or risk get you banned.

Follow these steps closely, though, and you’ll have the power to send thousands of visitors to your site on demand.

10 Steps To Reddit Marketing Success, And The Results That They Bring

Beginner Steps:

1. Keep It Relevant

If you want to get large amounts of traffic from reddit, you have to keep your posts highly relevant to the users.

This means that the more that you can tailor your posts to the subreddit that you’re posting in, the better. Avoid posting content that addresses too broad of an audience.

This requires you to do a little bit of research into your subreddit and see what kinds of posts are already popular. Get a feel for your audience there. Then you will be more equipped to create a popular post of your own.

If the end goal of your site is to sell a product or get subscribers, you will need to do some customer development first.

This will ensure that you’re in touch with what your audience wants, while saving you a ton of time in the long run.

2. Only Post Great Content

Only post your best content on reddit!

Short and generic content will not perform well. It will also get down-voted and you’ll lose any valuable reputation points (karma) that you have.

Only post content that is in-depth, unique, well-written, helpful and actionable. Wherever you post your article, reddit users are going to click on it to check it out. What they think of it (either upvote or down vote) will dictate your results.

3. No Double Dipping

Don’t start getting greedy on me now!  

I’ll admit, the big win is addictive. 

When you log in to your analytics account and see that spike in traffic and realize: “Oh yeah, I posted on reddit –  and it only took me 2 seconds!”

Usually the next natural thought is “I should be doing this all the time!”

But that’s where you can get yourself in trouble. Stay out of “hot” areas. This means that if you just posted a link in a subreddit, let it rest for a while! I usually wait 2 weeks to a month before I post another link of my own in the same subreddit.

4. Have fun

This is possibly the most important point on the list that impatient marketers overlook.

This is why ‘the other guys’ are terrible at getting traffic from reddit.

You need to be a normal reddit user.

Remember, you can’t be a marketer, you have to be a redditor.

Interact with the rest of the site. Build up a post history that shows that you’re a normal user. Build up your karma points by posting helpful or funny comments on other posts.

Does this mean that you’re going to have to spend hours on end seemingly wasting time on the site?

No way!

All it takes is about 10 minutes a week talking about your favorite subjects or commenting on some of those funny GIF images. The interesting thing about reddit users is that they are generally very passionate about the site.

If they think that they smell a “marketer,” they WILL go and look at your post history and see if your posting pattern confirms their suspicion. If you have a good amount of normal posts, you will prove them wrong!

Not to mention “having fun” on subreddits relevant to your niche will give you a sense of what posts are popular there, so you can model them to create popular posts of your own.

Following the above guidelines has allowed me to achieve these results to the site that I am working with now.

reddit never existed as a traffic source for this site before I began applying these techniques.

Do you know what it took to get those 1,104 clicks from reddit?  Drumroll please…

A grand total of 3 posts.

I’ll be modest and say that it took me a minute to create each post. That’s not bad traffic ROI for only spending 3 minutes.

Here’s a screenshot of the reddit traffic my first week helping promote this site. This was from a single post.

Advanced Steps:

Follow these steps and they will allow you to keep a positive reputation on reddit and sustain the above results.

5. Address the Concerns of the Community Before They Have Them

Steps 1-4 can get you far, but if you want to take it to the next level (which I’m sure you do) you can’t stop there!

Addressing the community’s concerns before they have them ties in with step 4 on the list. If you post links to your site on reddit, there will be a lot of users that will to try to find an excuse to down vote your posts, report you to moderators, bad mouth you etc.

What you have to do is beat them to the punch and address all of their concerns before they can get a word in.

You can use text posts to help you promote something. The idea is to provide value and explain yourself before you ask users to click through to your site. You can be honest about the content being yours as long as it is genuinely helpful

 6. Don’t Ever Let Your First (or second) Post be a Promotion

This should go without saying, but if you’re new to a subreddit, be sure to post a few other things in that there first before you decide to promote anything of your own. I made this point short, since the last one was so long. 

7. Don’t Over-Promote.

You may think that if you don’t promote your site repeatedly in the same Subreddit that you’ll be fine. But this is yet another big reddit no-no.

reddit moderators and users can see your site-wide activity.

Not to mention that they have automatic spam filters.

If you post links to the same domain name too often you run a huge risk. reddit’s automatic spam filters will blacklist your domain, so that if ANYONE posts it, it won’t show up. They can also “ghost” your account which is a special kind of punishment for spammers. Getting ghosted means that none of your posts ever show up to anyone but you. So you can post as much as you want, but they will never show up to anyone else.

Don’t abuse the system, and you’ll be safe.

Here is how google analytics registered the traffic that I was getting:

Notice the high rate of engagement! All traffic driven to this campaign was very interested in what I had to offer, which again is no easy feat with many other traffic sources.

Pro Tips

 8. Share Your New Posts With Your Friends

Even if you do not have a team, you should still have a group of people or a network that you can share your content with. This step entails you sending your new reddit posts to your friends (or Twitter followers) that are also reddit users. If they like what you posted, they’ll give you an upvote, which will attract other reddit users, and get the ball rolling for your post to get very popular.

Whenever I post anything on reddit, I immediately send it to a few of my friends that are on reddit. This popular post of mine, started with just a few upvotes, by the first people that I sent it to.

Once it was upvoted, other redditors knew that the post was worth their time to check out.

9. Comment and Reply to Everyone

Activity on your reddit post breeds more activity.

This means that when someone comments on your post, reply to their comment to double the comment count. When posts have lots of comments, it gets more redditors to click on your post, and join the conversation.

You can even be the first one to comment on a link that you post. I’ve used this method before to explain the content that I’ve posted and get the conversation started. With the same post above, I’ve stayed very active in the comments, to add lots of activity to the thread.

Here’s the comment count:

This looks like a lot of activity on a post, although 10 of the comments are my own.

 10. Be Humble

Most people take criticism on their post as a bad thing.

But you can use it as one of your biggest advantages.

Here’s how:

When you post and reply to comments, be sure to keep your tone humble.

Not only will this help you with number 5 on the list (Address the Concerns of the Community Before They Have Them), it will also help you to get better at using reddit to drive traffic and customers to your website. When you reply to comments, be sure to learn as much from your commenters as you can.

If they criticize you use their criticism to ask questions.

State that you actively follow the rules, and that you aim to add value to the community.

The reddit self promotion guidelines they state: “It’s perfectly fine to be a redditor with a website, it’s not okay to be a website with a reddit account.”

If you follow this checklist, you will be following the rules of reddit.

Remind the community of this, and ask how you can better contribute your content. You’ll be surprised how much the commenters will help you get better at promoting your content.

I practice this in all of my posts, and it has allowed me to keep a very positive reputation on reddit, while learning how to get better at driving traffic to my sites.

To make sure that these points stick with you, we’ve created an infographic “cheat sheet” that you can always use as a quick reference.

Download it, share it, print it, but whatever you do be sure to use it.

11. Bonus Step: Advertise

If you have an offer that you’d really like to send a lot of traffic to, then ADVERTISE!

Getting started with reddit ads is super cheap ($5 minimum) and you can send targeted traffic directly to an offer for $1 for 1000 ad impressions.

Paid ads that I currently run get 1%+ click through rates when everyone else averages 0.2%.

That’s 5X the average CTR of reddit ads!

Not only are the click through rates good, but the traffic to my landing pages has converted between 20-25%.

I’m not 100% done testing this out yet, but I’m planning on creating a guide on this very soon once I get some solid results and continue to fine tune the process.

Conclusion:

Don’t be a “Reddit Marketer!”

Be a redditor.

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10 Recommendations To Produce High-Quality Content For Your Blog

Writing quality content for your blog is easier said than done. Developing rankable blog posts is a science which has to be mastered if you want to serve your readers with high-quality content.

Find your voice and add it to the original content.

Having meaningful things to say can actually help your blog with people’s love and Google’s blessings.

I personally have always believed that there should not be any trick restricted to any single person, so here in this post I will reveal what tips and procedure I follow for writing exceptional search engine friendly articles.

Here are the only steps required to produce high-quality content on your blog. Assuming you already have selected your topic according to your audience, here are the tips for writing exceptional blog posts.

Tips For Writing High-Quality Articles

1) Researching for a topic:

We just cannot pick up a topic and write about it. In order to make your content worth appreciation, you need to have proper knowledge on the topic. This is where research comes in.

You can research your upcoming blog post by any of the following methods:

1) Wikipedia: Wikipedia is the first and foremost resource when you want to get the basic information as well as data statistics of a subject. But, sometimes this does not just fit all. Wikipedia can sometimes be biased or has information that can be manipulated. In that case, you can include the following tools for research:

2) Google scholar: Google scholar is my go-to source when it writing on topics that need references from university articles, thesis by experts and other published research papers.

3) Google books: Citing quotes and references from books under public domain can be a great add for your blog post. You can customize Google books to source such information for your upcoming blog posts. Project Gutenberg is the largest collection of free books that you can edit, twist and use for your commercial blog posts.

Other such places, where you can find hidden knowledge to make your post outstanding are The Internet Archive which has way too much information that sometimes can be a gold mine, Google Public data also has some wonderful resources based on your niche.

2) Writing headlines:

People have an average attention span of just 8 seconds and no matter how intriguing your blog post is, no one will read it if they are not convinced that it is worth their time within the first few seconds.

So, you have to make your headlines or titles so smart that they just cast a spell on your readers. A boring headline can drive them out even if the content inside is rich in information.

Similarly, a headline that doesn’t deliver its promise will irk your reader and he will never trust your site again. That’s how important headlines are!

Here is an ultimate resource of headlines that work on any content type.

Bonus: Use a free title generator like Portent’s title maker to write breathtaking headlines that will cast a spell on your readers. Try it.

3) Writing the researched data into a well-formatted post:

While all the researched data are valuable, it isn’t actually needed as it is. They will scare your readers away and moreover raw data is useless unless it is meaningfully processed. So follow these tips to get your writing to the next level.

a) Start with a fact, an intriguing question or a positive hope:

Kindling the hope of something good in the reader’s mind can keep him stuck to your post till the end. Facts will help you catch the attention of the reader. While a good hope kindling opening paragraph like the below might get all the positive attention of the reader.

“So, how much did your fruit orchard yield this summer? What if I told you can earn threefold with that much fertilizer and half the labor done? Recent developments in machinery farming equipment have really made farming a single man’s quest.”

As you will notice I started by giving them the hope of earning 3X which is very positive and the reader will surely read further to know how.

b) Do not limit yourself to one-dimensional reader:

In that above paragraph, I started by asking a question to my readers (agriculture or big orchard owners) on the earnings on their farm this year. I never said or gave them a finite number. If I would have said, “I hope you earned above 50$” it would have been a finite question whereas many who earned more or less than that would not read my post further.

Secondly, I did not lure them saying you can make 500$ (again a finite number) more from your farm. I said they can earn three times more which indicates it can be 150$ for someone who earned 50$ and 3000$ for someone who earned 1000$ from their orchards.

This is how I made my content appeal everyone.

4) Use long tail keywords:

Keywords are still important if you want some traffic from search engines. However, having keywords less than three to four words makes it quite broad to appeal to a single reader base.

For example, if you (an Australian) weave your content around the keyword “car mechanic shop” you are sure to compete with millions if not billions of other car mechanic shops in the whole world.

Another thing is even if you rank for car mechanics your readers will not be convertible because you simply are not situated near to the location.

Like if an American car owner dropped to your site from a search engine he would simply bounce off seeing your local business address situated in Australia.

Again, if you consider using a long tail keyword like “car repair shop in south Sydney” You have to compete with ten times less other sites and you have targeted visitors who could be easily converted into your leads or clients.

This is what is called long tail keywords. I use Long Tail Pro to find highly converting keywords that are easy to rank.

Long tail keywords are something that can make your post more unique because many people won’t choose them due to fewer searches. I, however, suggest you to use them to bring in more committed traffic. 

5) Use LSI Keywords for even more optimized post:

The most optimized blog post is the one not optimized at all (written naturally)

The most optimized blog post is the one not optimized at all. Click to Tweet

But many of us always tend to stuff keywords and meta tags to the post that turns it spammy in the eyes of Google.

Google’s hummingbird algorithm now checks for how a page is related to a concept rather than just a term or phrase. It targets conversational search queries. While this is good news for those focusing on writing on detailed articles, it definitely robs the keyword stuffed sites circling around just one or two phrases.

The ultimate aim of using latent semantic indexing for ranking pages on Google is to empower pages that focus on providing value to the readers.

For example, if you had a post on “dog keeping” you got to mention terms like “dog food”, “optimum temperature for dogs” and terms like “dog brush”, “soap for dogs” etc.

How to use LSI Keywords to get your pages the ranking they deserve:

1. Use a variety of anchor texts for internal linking.
2. Search for Google to find related terms.
3. You can also use Google’s auto-predict feature to see what terms are being thrown for your phrase.
4. Use a lexical database to get more synonyms and in-depth related terms and phrases.
5. You can also use AdSense sandbox feature to see what ads are being displayed when a page is loaded so that you could use those terms in your post. Reason behind this is ad copies are often the most researched word groups.

6) Internal linking:

Internal linking a post not only adds value to the articles linked in the post but also makes your content more relatable by adding related articles that the reader can refer while reading the article.

You should at least add three (it’s not fixed and depends on the length of the post used) internal links to each of your posts.

Also, edit the old posts and include links to recent articles in them as internal links as it will help in faster indexing of new articles and also pass some SEO juice to them.
Learn From BloggerTipsTricks

Why should we do effective internal linking?
Read this guide to learn effective internal linking techniques (with examples and imp. tools).

7) On-page SEO:

While a quality blog post should be devoted to the readers, it should also please the search spiders to rank them for those readers.

On page SEO is also very important to let the search engine bots know what your content is all about.

A quality article which is expected to be loved by search engines are ought to be SEO optimized.

You should not hesitate to link to authority sites (the relevant ones) in fear of bleeding SEO juice. Linking to other authority blogs can make your content more relevant and trustworthy.

On-Page SEO includes internal linking (explained above), adding of related keywords, optimizing images for search engines etc. Don’t forget to check these 5 Lesser Known On-Page SEO Optimization Techniques.

8) Scan ability:

Books are easier to understand or preview because they have an index page. This makes the reader scan the contents of the page.

Similarly your content should be scan-able. You need to provide a complete road map for the readers who don’t have time to go in-depth reading all your paragraphs.

Here is where subheadings and bulleted points come into play. You can use subheadings to tell your reader what the whole content is about. A subheading should be distinct and should have the power to predict the paragraph underneath.

9) Call to action:

A post without a clear call to action is like car without a steering.

You need to be sure as to what you intend your audience to do after reading a post.

• If it is a review post, your audience should go check the product after reading the review.
• If you have a motivation post, you would want the reader to take a positive action.
• If it is your about page, you would want your reader to have trust for you (after reading the page).

My post (the current one) intends to you to go and take steps to writing a better blog post.

It is up to you, how you use CTA into your post. You can use it to get more comments, social shares and more email subscribers too.

10) Write like an authority:

Last but not the least, you should write as if you are an authority in the subject.

Yes, you have to appear even if you are not yet an authority.

No one will like a site that is written (or appears to be) like a newbie.

Your sentence structure and grammar should be compelling. Write short and crisp paragraphs.

Double check your grammar, you always need to proofread because you never know when a typo might surface. I use Grammarly for proofreading and checking my grammar and spelling errors.

You should also check if something you wrote matches with something written prior to you.

I know you don’t plagiarize; but not your audience.

So it is better to check and remove any traces of copied sentences (or even styles of writing) before you are caught.

Use a tool like Grammarly to check your content for traces of plagiarism.

Final words:

Quality content can be anything.

You don’t need to be a scientist to write great researched posts. Your aim should be to provide value to the readers.

Additionally, you must take care that your content is presented safely to the search bots. There is no point over-optimizing the content.

What tips do you follow for writing content that is well received by your audience?

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Tips to Write Great Guest Posts and Attract People to Your Website

A post for bloggers with effective guest blogging tips to experience its benefits and to perform well in the blogosphere.

Most of the website owners have started considering guest blogging very seriously as it is an effective marketing technique in the online world. Not only bloggers, even multinational companies have started guest blogging for some valid reasons.

If you are an influential blogger, I am sure that you have already started to guest post on other blogs of your same niche and tasting its benefits.

But if you are a newbie blogger, then you might ask “What is guest blogging?” and “Why should I write guest posts on other blogs?”

Yeah, both are good questions! But before answering to it, let me ask some questions because I always taking care and love to read other blogs 

Add “Do you” for every question of mine!

1. Want to increase credibility among your blog readers?
2. Need to have more blog subscribers?
3. Prefer the natural promotion for your blog?
4. Desire to gain more visibility and traffic to your blog?
5. Favor effective link building method?
6. Wish to make friendship with fellow and prominent bloggers?

I know, all your answers for my questions are “YES” as you are a passionate blogger. Then do “Guest blogging” on active blogs to reap these benefits.

Now here is the answer for your very first question:

What is Guest Blogging?

“Guest blogging is a strategy of appearing on other same niche blogs with your fresh post as a guest.”

But be sure that your guest post should not ruin the status of the blog where you are appearing as a guest blogger. It means that you need to submit quality guest posts on other blogs and help those blog owners to get good traffic through your posts.

Hope you are now somewhat clear with “Guest blogging and its benefits”. Am I correct?

I always used to write high-quality guest posts for my blogging friends and influential bloggers. Also am feeling virtuous as this is my 13th guest post in my 5 months blogging career.

Ok, let me explain some common myths of guest blogging.

Guest Blogging Myths

Myth #1. Number of guest posts approved is important than its quality.
Some bloggers performing guest blogging just to build backlinks to their blog. They are showing interest to create more number of guest posts on various blogs and never mind about its quality. It is a bad practice and should be avoided by the bloggers.

Truth: Quality guest posts sounds greater than more no. of guest posts submitted just for link-building.

Myth #2: Blogs should have good PR to submit guest post on other blogs.
Newbie bloggers think that their blog should have high Pagerank to submit their guest post on other blogs. It is not true! My guest posts were accepted in PR4 and PR3 blogs and my blog’s page rank is 0. So, don’t hesitate to guest post on energetic blogs even if you have low or zero page rank.

Truth: Valuable guest posts which are helpful for the visitors are readily accepted on famous blogs.

Myth #3: Taking much effort for guest blogging is waste
I came across few bloggers with the statement “Why should I write long and quality posts just for backlinks and I have alternate ways for it”. No, it is really wrong and the bloggers should not expect instant results from guest blogging.

Truth: Guest blogging is only effective if it is focused to have long-term benefits. Write expert-quality content and make sure to scan it for any grammar mistakes.  The more value you will add into your guest post, the more benefit you will get in long-term.

Tips To Get Your Guest Posts Accepted

1. Try to impress the blog owners whom you are selected to submit your guest posts with polite approach and explain why you have selected their blog to submit your post.
2. You should write guest post for related niches with good PR and high authority blogs, so sure to be thorough with their guidelines of guest posting.
3. Follow your unique style in writing to stand out from other guest bloggers.
4. It is really exciting to see your name on well-performing blogs right? So include a simple and gorgeous Author-bio for your guest post.
5. Make efforts to engage the visitors from the beginning of your guest post by offering some fresh or unread data for them.

Conclusion:

I am definitely saying that no other publicizing method can beat guest blogging. It is a honest white hat SEO technique which brings countless benefits to the bloggers. Also it is a good opportunity for the bloggers to reach wider minded audience and chance to establish a good relationship with the powerful bloggers.

Through the guest blogging experience, the bloggers can get their name known in the blogosphere.

Now it’s your turn to speak!

Have you been a guest blogger? What are the benefits you attained with it?
If you are a newbie, just say “Are you going to perform guest blogging?”
What about the effective guest blogging tips which I have shared here? Is it beneficial?

Share your valuable thoughts with me as I always love to hear your voice 

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